


Strangely Fond of You

by sternflammenden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Underage Character, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-25
Updated: 2011-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:18:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternflammenden/pseuds/sternflammenden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from Fat Walda's life, before and after her marriage to Roose Bolton. Ends just before the Red Wedding, so no spoilers for anything beyond ASOS.  I know it's "oddly fond," but I like the way that "strangely" scans.</p><p>A little AU - I moved the wedding North instead of having it at the Twins because I'm a sucker for a nice Godwood wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangely Fond of You

Walda’s mother often overlooks her. It’s easy, you see, when a family is large and your other siblings are unruly and boisterous. Walda prefers to fade into the background. She is quiet and observant, a thoroughly sensible child. It doesn’t bother her that she usually goes unnoticed. She rather prefers it.

It’s either that or be taunted. “Fat Walda!” and “Aurochs” are some of the usual names. It doesn’t bother her; after all, these are her sisters, and they all tease each other. And after you’re called a name, over and over, you become accustomed to it, and any initial sting is lessened.

Still, sometimes, she wishes that she were an only child.

\--

When Walda is older, her mother relies on her more and more to assist in the running of the household. She’s expected to watch the little one, kiss her cuts and bruises, see that she’s bathed, and put to bed. She also learns her sums to help with the household figures. Mother is preoccupied more and more these days. Her face is often drawn and her eyes blank. Father, long suffering from an old wound, isn’t well.

She trips over one of her little brother’s forgotten toys while helping Mother clear things after dinner, and stumbles into the table, spilling Father’s wine. It bleeds across the table, a red disaster.

“Wretched girl! Just as clumsy and big as an ox.” He sops up the mess with his napkin and throws it at her. It hits her in the face, and the dregs of the wine drip down her cheeks and stain her dress.

Walda doesn’t say a word. She just cleans up the mess, eyes downcast, as cautious as she can be. Her father strikes her with the side of his hand, and although it brings tears to her eyes, it’s best not to react. It will only make him angrier.

\--

Father was raging again, and Mother begs him to calm down, to stop shouting. Does he want everyone to hear him? Her little sister comes to her in the night, terrified, wanting to hide in Walda’s bed. She takes Marissa in her arms and they lie there together, not daring to move, staring at the ceiling through the darkness.

“Why is Papa so angry?”

Walda sighs. “He’s angry at Ami again.”

“Why?”

Walda can’t think of what to say. Her older sister, pretty and vivacious, is pregnant. She is unmarried.

Both girls flinch at a loud slap and then a scream and Walda recognizes Ami’s voice in that.

“And how to marry you off now? You’re no daughter of mine! You’re nothing but a tart, do you hear?”

Ami screams again in pain and rage.

Her younger brother, Walder, wakes up in the next room and begins to cry.

“The Seven take you then! Why did they send me such stupid girls, one as fat as a pig and just as stupid, and the other no better than a poxy whore!”

It stung, but just a little.

“Don’t worry about it. Go to sleep.”

Neither of them can, of course.

\--

Walda’s mother is crying because her daughter is going away. Grandfather, or the Old Bastard, as Walda’s father refers to him when he is in his cups, which is a good deal of the time these days, has brokered a marriage deal for her, to the Lord of the Dreadfort.

She’ll be going north in a few weeks for the wedding.

She doesn’t know what to feel, to be truthful. She will miss Marissa and Little Walder, and she worries for her mother, who will be left alone to shoulder the burden of things. But she won’t miss the emptiness, the shouting, the blows, the cruel japes at her expense. She won’t miss Father.

She’s never even seen a picture of her husband to be but imagines that he can’t be much worse.

Mother tells her to be good and obedient and do as Lord Roose bids her. She has heard rumors about the things that happen at the Dreadfort and is afraid for her plain, silent, awkward daughter. But there is nothing to be done.

\--

Walda just wishes that the day were over. Her wedding dress is ugly, ill-fitting, and itchy, in the traditional blue and grey of her house. A heavy cloak, embroidered with the Frey Towers, hangs over her shoulders. She is glad for the cloak, at least. It is cold as death in the north.

Her husband is very ordinary. Roose Bolton isn’t a monster with claws and fangs, wearing a human skin and drinking blood, like Ami told her before she left, her jealousy palpable. Walda had secretly enjoyed that. He is just a middle-aged man with pale grey eyes and a quiet way of speaking. When they were introduced, he kissed her gloved hand and stared at her as though she were a piece of furniture. She bobbed a curtsy and tried not to do anything stupid.

Everyone defers to him, and many seem to fear him, but she doesn’t find him that intimidating, considering. She prefers his stony silence to her father’s rage.

The ceremony is brief, as they customarily are in the north. Her cloak is exchanged for that of her husband’s, a flayed man on a pale pink field. Walda is not fond of pink, nor the icy wind that whips through the godswood, nor the eerie trees with their red dripping eyes and gaping mouths. The Freys are not observant, but they perfunctorily acknowledge the Seven. Her husband’s gods are alien, as alien as the desolate plains and jagged mountains that surround them.

Bolton claims her as his, they say their vows, and it is over before she knows it. She is no longer Fat Walda Frey. She is Lady Bolton of the Dreadfort. It is a good exchange.

\--

Walda is a virgin, of course. She isn’t ignorant of the act, having grown up with Ami and her free ways, along with a gaggle of bored, spoiled cousins, all of whom are prettier than she. She is mostly afraid of the pain, and of disappointing her husband. When he comes to her, she pulls the covers up to her chin, hiding the tacky pink gown that her mother so carefully stitched as a wedding gift. Her heart is in her throat.

Her husband firmly unhooks her fingers from the coverlet, and it slides to the floor. He stares at her again, in the same curious way, as if she were an object. In a way, she is. She’s a vessel for sons, a means to an heir.

“You are a maid.” It is a statement, not a question. She doesn’t trust herself to speak, only to nod.

“No matter. It will be over and soon.”

When he penetrates her, there is pain. It’s not like the pain when Father struck her, or the pain of a hurled insult. She cries out. It is the first noise that she has made since they stood under the heart tree.

“Do you like that?” His voice is so cold, as he whispers in her ear.

Walda gasps. “Oh yes, my lord husband. Oh yes.”

And she does. It’s not that she derives any pleasure from the motions, from her husband’s queer pale body pressed against hers. It’s the sense of triumph, the knowledge that she has a use, after all.

She cries out, again and again. It reminds her that she is alive, waking at last.

\--

Walda is idle, most of the time. Playing at Lady Bolton is amusing. She has maidservants who do her will, a wardrobe full of beautiful dresses, all in rich fabrics that would have been out of place before, tarts whenever she wants them, with no one to mark a cruel remark.

Roose Bolton is occupied most of the time with other things. She is not quite sure what those are, because he takes great pains to shield her from them. Walda suspects that it is partially because he doesn’t quite trust her grandfather (this she culls from listening at doors) and partially because he regards his wife’s role as that of bedpartner, of ornament, of mother to the children that they will one day have.

He is not unkind to her. He is harsh, however, with others, and she sees and learns. It is important not to disrupt things, to keep ugliness and chaos concealed. The world must see a pleasant picture in the end.

It isn’t a bad life, not really.

Walda grows to enjoy the sexual act. She screams when they couple, because she secretly suspects that her husband enjoys it. He is so silent, after all, and it amuses her to hear her voice echo through the halls, as if she were claiming them for her own.

\--

One day, she grows courageous enough to ask him a question.

“Do you really flay your enemies?”

Lord Bolton frowns slightly. He is usually so composed and she is suddenly fearful. She’s finally made a mistake.

“I’m only curious,” she says then, her voice rising. “I didn’t really mean to—“

He takes her to the dungeons, a place that she had never seen, a place that she didn’t care to see. There is a room with skins, ancient, flaking away, their mouths frozen in silent screams. There is another room with a table, supplied with restraints at both ends, and she sees a set of curved knives lying on top.

Walda examines one of them. It is stained with years of old blood.

“Mother and I used a similar thing.”

Roose Bolton raises an eyebrow. “A...similar thing?”

“We used to trap rabbits. And I’d have to gather them. Ami – Ami is my sister – was too fine a thing to bother, and Marissa and Walder were just too little. I’d check the traps, bring them to Mother, and we’d dress them for supper.”

It was the most that she’d ever said to him at once.

“I’m not afraid, you know,” she said, putting down the knife. “But you never answered my question. Those skins are not fresh, and this table is dry.”

He nods, unsurprised at her rush of words. “It is true. Things are harder in the north.”

“Things were hard at the Twins, too. Only my father didn't skin his enemies. He just beat his daughters.” She follows him upstairs, remembering.

\--

That night, as they lay in bed, he tells her that he must go south on the morrow, on urgent business. Even though she asks why, he will not tell her. It is not her place, after all.

“I shall miss you, my Lord,” she says, and means it, in a way. When he is gone, only the servants will remain, and they are even more silent. “Do hurry home to me.” Although she is afraid that the words ring false, on some level, for her, they are true.

“It may not be a short trip.” Although they have lain together twice, he idly touches her breast. His hands are like ice, but she doesn’t pull away.

“Then I will await your return, and hopefully when next we meet, I will be with child.”

She smiles then. Freys are fertile, and she hopes that she will be no exception.

“Let us hope,” he replies, and mounts her again. She is weary, but does not protest.

“Do I please you, then, my lord husband?” she whispers, as he enters her again.

When they have finished, he touches her hair. He still looks at her in that strange way, as though she were merely property, and that does not offend her, deep down. She is valued property, and well-cared for.

“I admit that I have grown strangely fond of you.”

Walda does not quite know what to make of that. She knows that he does not love her, and that he never will, but at least that is something.

“As have I you, my lord,” she whispers, after she is sure that he is asleep.

\--

Walda sits at her desk, going over the household books. Lord Roose had asked, before he departed with his banners, if she knew her sums. She was pleased to admit that she did, and took the heavy ledgers from him, with the instructions to clean up the mess that the steward had made of them. He expected order when he returned.

It has taken some time, but all was well. Her hand is steady and her script even as she totals the week’s expenditures.

A raven arrives that evening from her husband, summoning her to the Twins for her cousin Roslin’s wedding. Walda obeys, ordering the maids to pack her finest gown, a pale pink garment covered with hand-woven lace. She walks the empty rooms, the long hallways, hearing her footfalls echo through the stillness.

It was hers. Despite everything, she had everything that she could want. One thing was missing that would make it all complete, but that was only a matter of time, really.

She dines alone in her room that evening, composing a reply.

_Dearest Husband,_

_I pray that you are well, and praise the gods for returning me to you. Tomorrow I journey south to meet you, and anticipate, above all, the moment when at last we are reunited. I hope that Roslin and her Tully husband will find in their marriage the happiness that we have in ours, and I am sure that soon, we will be blessed with an entire house of sons..._


End file.
